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Dell EMC brings ProDeploy model to PCs with ProDeploy Client Suite

Like the ProDeploy Enterprise Suite introduced a little over a year ago, the Dell EMC ProDeploy Client Suite offers three levels of service offerings, designed in a way to make it easy for partners to resell or co-deliver.

At Dell World in October 2015, Dell launched the ProDeploy Enterprise Suite, which simplified and productized Dell’s enterprise services offerings in a way that was friendly for the channel to offer through a flexible reselling and co-delivery model. Following up the success of that initiative, Dell EMC has announced the launch of ProDeploy Client Suite, which is structured the same way except that its focus is on services around PC deployment.

“In structure, they are intentionally very similar,” said John Moody, vice president, Global Support & Deployment Services at Dell EMC. “The difference is the while the initial one was more of a straightforward enterprise play, this new one is focused on the client.”

Like the Enterprise Suite, the ProDeploy Client Suite is organized into three tiers on a ‘good – better – best’ system

The ‘good’ tier is Basic Deployment. In it, systems are prepared for deployment and arrive with the image loaded, BIOS configured and asset tag applied.

“We expect that this will be popular among partners who will use this to become the face of the deployment for their customer,” Moody said.

The ‘better’ tier is ProDeploy. It includes all the Basic Deployment features, but also provides a deployment engineer to develop an implementation plan covering all aspects of installation and configuration of hardware and system software. 24/7 onsite installation and post-deployment knowledge transfer are also included. Another important feature is the ImageAssist tool, which lets customers create, deploy and maintain a single cross-platform dynamic image.

“We believe customers who choose the ProDeploy option will want thus ImageAssist tool, which allows them to manage multiple profiles and test them virtually,” Moody indicated. “We also think they are looking for onsite installation.”

The ‘best’ tier, ProDeploy Plus, adds the ability to use Dell Connected Configuration to set up a factory distribution point for their Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager [SCCM] to securely configure BIOS, image and domain join, which lowers onsite effort. It also includes data migration with secure data wipe of legacy systems, training credits to use at any time, 30-day post-deployment support, and a dedicated ProSupport Technical Account Manager.

“The type of customer who buys ProDeployPlus is likely to have used SCCM and want to be able to push through to use those in our factory directly,” Moody said. “Our new Connected Configuration capabilities allow them to do that, to connect to the factory directly where they can manage their images to adjust them fast. It will also appeal to those who desire the data migration capability, or who want some kind of data wipe solution. Customers who want one or more of those three things will want ProDeployPlus.”

Moody acknowledged that almost all of these capabilities were available before – the one exception being the new Connected Configuration capabilities.

“The difference is that they are now presented with simplicity,” he said. “Before we could have 40-50 types of deployment offers depending on how big you were and what you wanted done. This simplifies those offers. All of these capabilities could be done individually – and they still can. Other customers will want to add to ProDeploy Plus, with inventory, storage or logistics capabilities that are a little more custom.”

Moody also highlighted the importance of the TechDirect portal in providing a high level of control, automation and simplicity for every detail of the deployment.

“The TechDirect portal is one of the top reasons customers are excited about this offer,” he said. “It began years ago as a self-dispatch tool for our bigger customers. We have now expanded it so it can direct all aspects of a deployment. It has become a really big part of what we consider our differentiation in the market – the way we combine all these things together into a self-service portal.”

Moody stated that even customers with deep IT benches perfectly capable of handling this kind of configuration work will find value in these service packages.

“There’s not a lot of advantage to be gained in taking smart people and having them do fairly repetitive tasks, spending your resources on commoditized repetitive tasks,” he indicated.

Moody also emphasized that these services were designed with the channel in mind.

“We built these offers to be channel partner friendly, so they can either resell or co-deliver them,” he said. “In the past, Dell developed offers and morphed them over time to meet channel needs. However, in the last 5-6 years. we have been developing them to meet channel needs from the beginning. We have built features and functionality in with the channel in mind.”

Moody indicated that Dell EMC expects channel interest in all three service offerings.

“I expect channel take-up across the board,” he said. “The Basic package is appealing because it lets them get the imaging done and reduce their time spent. A lot of partners also have customers that aren’t conveniently all in one place or they see particular value because they manage their customers’ SCCM and image profiles already, so getting connect and configuration set up lets them do that work in the factory. Many love the Image Assist tool because it lets them manage multiple profiles, to make sure the image actually functions correctly.”